I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day: Longfellow's Original Lyrics, the Civil War Story and the Bible Verses Behind the Carol (KJV)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) was the most famous poet in America when the Civil War began. In July 1861 his beloved wife Fanny was sealing envelopes with hot wax when her dress caught fire. Longfellow burned his face and hands trying to save her, and she died the next day. He grew the beard that appears in his portraits because he could no longer shave over the scars. That first Christmas he wrote in his journal that it was a sad, sad holiday. Then in 1863 his oldest son Charles, who had joined the Union army without his father's permission, was shot through the shoulder at the Battle of Mine Run in Virginia. On Christmas Day 1863 Longfellow wrote Christmas Bells. Two of its stanzas describe the war directly and are left out of most hymnals; all seven are printed below. The poem is honest about grief, and that honesty is why it still speaks to people who find Christmas hard. Below are Longfellow's words and the 12 KJV passages behind them.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day (Christmas Bells): the words

Verse 1
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Verse 2
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Verse 3
Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Verse 4
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Verse 5
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearthstones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Verse 6
And in despair I bowed my head;
'There is no peace on earth,' I said;
'For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!'

Verse 7
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
'God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!'

Words: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christmas Bells, dated December 25, 1863; first printed in the children's magazine Our Young Folks (February 1865). All 7 stanzas are copied from Longfellow's own collection Flower-de-Luce (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867), pages 24-26 (Internet Archive scan). Longfellow's quotation marks are shown here as single quotes. Hymnals usually omit stanzas 4 and 5, about the Civil War. Traditional tune: Waltham, J. Baptiste Calkin (1872). The words are public domain; the 1956 Johnny Marks melody and modern arrangements, such as the Casting Crowns version, are copyrighted.

Peace on earth, good-will to men: the song the bells repeat

1. Isaiah 9:7

Of peace on earth, good-will to men. Every stanza of the poem ends with the angels' words from Luke 2:14. That promise goes back to Isaiah's prophecy of the child on David's throne: Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end. The bells Longfellow heard were ringing out a promise first made seven hundred years before Bethlehem. Notice the word increase. Christ's peace does not arrive all at once; it grows, sometimes slowly and unseen, until it fills the earth. The last line of the verse is the guarantee: The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

2. Isaiah 52:7

Their old, familiar carols play. Church bells on Christmas morning were a kind of sermon, announcing good news to everyone within earshot. Isaiah describes the messenger who brings such news: How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace. In stanza 2 Longfellow imagines the belfries of all Christendom ringing the same song in town after town, as the day moves around the world. The gospel of peace has been passed along like that for two thousand years, from one voice to the next, until it reached us.

3. Ephesians 2:14

The unbroken song. Longfellow heard the bells as one song rolling across Christian lands, while his own country was split in two. Paul writes about a peace that breaks down walls between enemies: For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. Paul meant the wall between Jews and Gentiles, but the principle reaches every division. Christmas peace is not first a treaty between nations. It is Jesus Himself, reconciling people to God and then to one another, North and South, friend and enemy.

4. John 14:27

A voice, a chime, a chant sublime. The night before He died, Jesus told His disciples: Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. That distinction matters for this poem. The world's peace, the absence of war, was nowhere in sight in 1863. But Jesus offers a peace that can live inside a troubled heart even while the guns are firing. He goes on: Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. That is the peace the bells are really singing about.

There is no peace on earth: honest grief in a time of war

5. Jeremiah 6:14

There is no peace on earth, I said. Longfellow's despair is not unbelief; it is honesty, and the Bible makes room for it. Jeremiah condemned the false prophets of his day who covered real wounds with cheerful words: saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Longfellow refused to do that. He looked at a nation where brothers were killing brothers and admitted that the carols seemed to be lying. If Christmas feels hollow to you this year, you are in good company. God does not ask us to pretend things are fine before we come to Him.

6. Matthew 24:6

Then from each black, accursed mouth the cannon thundered in the South. The fourth stanza, almost never sung, describes the guns of the Civil War drowning out the carols. Jesus warned His followers to expect exactly this kind of world: ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. War does not mean God has lost control or that His promises have failed. It means the story is not finished. Peace on earth is coming, but the end is not yet.

7. Psalms 13:1

And in despair I bowed my head. David knew that posture. Psalm 13 opens: How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? Longfellow had lost his wife, seen his son carried home wounded and watched his country tear itself apart. A question like how long is not a sin; it is prayer. Psalm 13 begins in that despair and ends six verses later with I will sing unto the LORD. Longfellow's poem follows the same path, from bowed head to ringing bells.

8. Psalms 42:11

For hate is strong, and mocks the song. When feelings say God's promises are a joke, the psalmist talks back to his own soul: Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him. Notice the word yet. Hope does not deny that hate is strong today. It holds on to what God will do. That is the turn in the poem. The bells did not change the war news; they reminded Longfellow that the last word belongs to God, not to hate.

God is not dead; nor doth He sleep: the Right shall prevail

9. Psalms 121:4

God is not dead; nor doth he sleep! This is the most famous line of the poem, and it comes straight from the Psalms: Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. When the world seems out of control, it can feel as if God has dozed off. Longfellow's bells insist otherwise. The God who keeps His people is awake every hour of every night, watching over soldiers in hospitals and widowers at their desks. The line has been quoted countless times since, because every generation needs to hear it.

10. Psalms 46:9

The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail. The psalm that begins God is our refuge and strength promises an end to war itself: He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder. Longfellow's final stanza is a confession of faith that this will happen. The cannon of stanza 4 will be broken like the bows and spears of the psalm. For the full psalm, see our page on Psalm 46. The poem ends not with the war's outcome but with God's.

11. Romans 16:20

With peace on earth, good-will to men. Paul gives a striking title to God at the end of Romans: And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The God of peace is not passive. He will crush the source of hate and evil, an echo of the first promise in Genesis 3:15 that the woman's seed would bruise the serpent's head. The baby whose birth the bells celebrate is that promised seed. Christmas peace is not weakness; it is the peace that comes after the decisive victory over evil.

12. Revelation 21:4

And made forlorn the households born of peace on earth. Longfellow knew what a forlorn household was. Revelation promises the day when God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. That is the final answer to the poem's despair. The bells of Christmas point toward a morning when there will be no more empty chairs, no more wars, no more widowers. If this Christmas comes with grief, hold on to that promise; it was written for you.

A short prayer

Lord God, some Christmases the carols sound hollow and there seems to be no peace on earth. Thank You that You let me bring my grief and my questions to You. Remind me that You are not dead, nor do You sleep, and that You keep watch over me through every dark night. Give me the peace Jesus promised, not as the world gives, and let it grow in me and around me. Comfort every forlorn household this season, and hasten the day when You wipe away all tears. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Go deeper: a SOAP study prompt

Pick one verse above and write: - Scripture: copy the verse by hand. - Observation: what does it say? Who is speaking, to whom? - Application: what does it mean for you today? - Prayer: turn it into a two-line prayer.

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Find peace through December with the free Advent reading plan · Print free Christmas Bible verse printables about peace · Pour out your heart in the 30-day prayer journal

Frequently asked questions

Who wrote I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), the American poet of Paul Revere's Ride and The Song of Hiawatha, wrote the words as a poem called Christmas Bells on December 25, 1863. It was first printed in 1865 and collected in his book Flower-de-Luce (1867). The English organist John Baptiste Calkin set it to music in 1872, and that is the tune most hymnals use. The tune many people know from radio is a 1956 melody by Johnny Marks.

What is the story behind I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day?

Longfellow wrote it during the Civil War, after two tragedies. In 1861 his wife Fanny died after her dress caught fire; he was badly burned trying to save her. In late November 1863 his son Charles, a Union lieutenant, was severely wounded at the Battle of Mine Run. On Christmas Day that year Longfellow wrote a poem that admits his despair, There is no peace on earth, and then answers it with faith that God is not dead and the right will prevail.

Why are two verses missing from I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day?

Longfellow's poem has seven stanzas. Stanzas 4 and 5 describe the cannon thundering in the South and the war rending the hearthstones of a continent. Because they refer so directly to the Civil War, hymnals and modern recordings usually leave them out, singing five stanzas instead. Without them, the despair of stanza 6 can seem sudden; with them, you can see exactly what broke Longfellow's heart.

Is I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day in the public domain?

Longfellow's words (1863) and Calkin's tune Waltham (1872) are in the public domain and can be freely printed. The 1956 melody by Johnny Marks and modern arrangements, such as the version recorded by Casting Crowns in 2008, are copyrighted. The original seven-stanza poem printed on this page is public domain.

Sources: All Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (KJV), public domain in the United States. References were checked against the KJV text from bible-api.com.

Related: Peace · Psalm 121 · Psalm 46 · Grief · Christmas · It Came Upon the Midnight Clear · A Christmas Prayer · Hope

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